Web Clips for November 2008

p20 | Pro/File: East Village Opera Company

Web Clip 1: This excerpt from "The Ride," shows how EVOC blends classical and rock material.

Web Clip 2: In this snippet from "Help Me (Jove, In Pity)," you can hear Kiesewalter's big-sounding stereo electric piano, which consisted of a Wurlitzer through a Fender Vibro Champ mixed to one side, and a double through Digidesign's Velvet plug-in, mixed to the other side.

p22 | Pro/File: Sunny Levine

Web Clip 1: An excerpt from the song "Relations", the opening cut on Love Rhino.

Web Clip 2: Levine likes to weave samples into his arrangements, as shown in this excerpt from the song "Glass Jaw".

p26 | Supersize Your Tone | Recording Guitars

Web Clip 1: The guitar parts in this example were recorded using a Fender Tele into a Gibson 1962 Falcon amp. The slightly dirty rhythm track has vibrato on it. There is a single Royer 121 ribbon mic on the amp, and the reverb is the Gibson's spring. There's no blanket in front of the mic/amp, just the closet. The heavy Tele part is using additional plug-in based distortion on top of the amp sound, to give it some extra drive.

Web Clip 2: In this example of a dual amp setup, I played a Fender Jaguar Bartione through both a Gibson 1962 Falcon amp and a Magnatone M10A amp, in stereo, which gives an almost natural chorus effect due to the differences in the amp tones. Each amp has only one mic, the Royer 121 on the Gibson and an SM57 on the Magnatone. The signals from the two amps are panned hard left and right to widen the image. Again, no absorbers are in front of the amps, although this was recorded in the amp closet.

Web Clip 3: This example features a Gibson Les Paul into a Mesa Boogie MK IV head. The amp's direct out is patched to my MW1 preamp then into the Digidesign Eleven modeling plug-in, with split stereo 4X12 cabinets. Eleven''s heads were bypassed, so the Boogie did the ‘dirty'' work. Note that there is a SoundToys EchoBoy DDL and an impulse response of a spring reverb from AudioEase Altiverb on the guitars, as well.

p46 | You Ought to Be in Pictures

Web Clip A: Blue Ajay's video for his band Booze Monkey, of the song "Dick Frankenstein's Night Out." The video was shot with a handheld mini-DV camera, and features Ajay playing all the instruments.

Web Clip B: Manna and Quail's "Fill Me Up," which was shot primarily outdoors by Tony Swansey. This is a good example of a concept video with a secondary storyline going on in it. Note also, how Swansey made good use of the sunlight, getting some really nice backlighting for some of the shots.

Web Clip C: In the video of "Starring Role," John Taglieri and the director utilized shots of the band as a whole and the individual band members to create a lip-synced performance that has the vibe of a live performance. Near the end you'll see the effect of the band members switching places and instruments, which was achieved by using a stationery camera.

Web Clip D: Alexander Preston of the band Mittens on Strings, created this low-budget video himself, using a $150 used camera, some homemade set materials, and Boinx iStopMotion animation software

p60 | Making Tracks: Creative Step Sequencing

Web Clip 1: I like to start with three steps, then add a step at a time when composing a step sequence.

Web Clip 2: Step sequencing should be interactive. Tweak the sequencer and synth parameters while the sequence plays.

Web Clip 3: You can use a step sequencer to create very fast arpeggios generated from single notes played in real time.

Web Clip 4: Here I've used all the techniques described in the article, using Atomic to play the mini-modular synthesizer BC16 from Chimera Synthesis (chimerasynthesis.com).

p62 | Sound Design Workshop: A Step in Time

Web Clip 1: This ZIP archive contains all the Live MIDI Effect Racks described in the text.

Web Clip 2: In this clip the MIDI percussion sequence has its pitches altered to trigger two step-sequencers, one of which plays the bass and the other, the synth lead.

Web Clip 3: In the first 16 bars of this arpeggiator-triggered clip, a new step is added to the step sequence every 2 bars. In the next 16 bars, the arpeggiator rate and style are changed at 2-bar intervals.

p78 | Review: Synapse Audio Orion 7.5

Web Clip A: This MP3 file was created entirely in Orion (although I did load it into a stereo audio editor to create the fade-in and fade-out). The song uses the sample-based drum machine, and several instances of the Toxic III FM synth.

p80 | Quick Pick: Sonivox Anatomy (Mac/Win)

Web Clip 1: This clip features the Chattering 1-Touch pad from the Man: Pads category.

Web Clip 2: This clip features the Breathing and Breathy Arctic Thrusters pads from the Man: Foley & FX category.